This project will investigate differentials in socioeconomic attainment of men among racial and ethnic groups in the United States in 1960 and 1970, utilizing the 1:100 Census Public Use Samples. The large sample size will permit the analysis of a large number of racial and ethnic groups whose processes of attainment have not been adequately studied. The analysis will proceed by using regression decomposition procedures to discover the sources of differences between majority whites and each of the racial and ethnic groups in years of education, occupational status, and annual earnings. The analysis will consider not only the usual individual characteristics that are believed to affect socioeconomic attainment but also contextual variables--aggregate characteristics of the labor market areas in which people reside. Basic questions to be investigated are: (1) To what extent are the differentials due to compositional differences between the groups in factors that affect attainment, and to what extent are they due to apparent discrimination--the receipt of different returns on given characteristics? (2) Are changes between 1960 and 1970 in the attainment level of a group or in its degree of difference from the majority white group due primarily to changes in the compositional characteristics or to changes in the discriminatory process? (3) What is the degree of residential segregation in metropolitan areas for each of the groups? Does residential segregation affect the attainment process? (4) What factors are related to differentials in the degree of discrimination toward different groups?